Just because people look at us when we stand to deliver a homily, we must not automatically think we possess knowledge, authority, or anything not available to the least among us. They could be listening for God.

Just because they fill the pews to worship God and in the process, listen to our sermons and say good things afterwards, does not mean they are there to hear us. They could be there for greater reasons.

If they laugh at our jokes and weep at our stories, we are not to think of ourselves as gifted communicators who have mastered our craft. It could be they are people of grace and graciousness.

We are messengers for Jesus Christ.

Anything more is wrong.

And could be dangerous.

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“In the beginning, God….” (Genesis 1:1)

Nowhere does the Bible try to prove the existence of God.  He is. Period.

Deal with it, earthlings.

Humanistic evangelists and atheistic peddlers are sure that we mindless theists have never considered the superior evidence for the positions they hold. Surely, if we did, they think, we would renounce the church and join them.

Once again, believers are lumped together by those who  “just don’t get it” as the terminally naive, the hopelessly hopeful, the unthinking uneducated and the irrationally illiterate.

Most of the solid believers I know have considered atheism at one time or other. I did, while in college.  This is not to say I joined the humanist society of Birmingham or majored in skepticism at Birmingham-Southern. But I read some of the stuff, talked to a few of the people, thought about the ramifications of it all, and made my choice to take my stand with believers.

I’ve never regretted it.

Here’s why.

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Recently on this blog, we did an article on “7 women pastors need to watch out for.”  Someone who just read it wanted to know why we put the blame on the women when pastors are more likely to be the sexual predator.  “Google that,” she suggested, “and see for yourself.”  My only defense is that in the body of the article, we said, “Sometimes women are the victims; sometimes they are the victimizers.” However, my critic is correct. And thus, what follows….

I’ve known more than one pastor who was a sexual predator.  And, if it makes the reader feel any better, every one of them is out of the ministry now.

My observation however is that no serial adulterer occupying the pastor’s office entered the ministry with such sordid intentions.  He fell into sin and one thing led to another. (Sound familiar? It’s how life works.)

So, what follows is for young ministers in particular who have not been snared in the lust-trap and wish to make sure they don’t. (For your information, I invited my wife Margaret to add her observations.)

Here are 7 lines pastors do not want to cross.

1) Do not use cologne. Women are sensitive to fragrances, my wife says, which is why they wear them in the first place. When a man wears them, he sends out a subtle signal, the type no wise minister needs to be emitting.

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Some people can fool you.

From the outside, they look so put-together. But scratch beneath the surface and they explode all over you.  The resentment and ill will were hovering barely out of sight, just waiting for a victim.

This was your lucky day.

We see versions of it on Facebook all the time.

Someone will make a statement of faith, a simple praise that the Lord loves an unworthy child like himself. After a few “amens” arrive from friends, some impatient soul cannot take it any more and chimes in, “Brother, God has made you worthy in Christ. Get that negative thinking out of your system!”

Where did that come from, you wonder.

Some sweet individual will post a statement on how good it is that Scriptures are inspired of God and how they bless me. Before long, the naysayer arrives to correct such a simple-minded believer, reminding him/her that Martin Luther called the Epistle of James a “book of straw,” or that certain passages in the New Testament are “spurious.”

They cannot allow a friend simply to rejoice in the Lord without coloring in the dark side.

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“For this momentary light affliction is working for us an exceeding weight of glory, far beyond all comprehension….” (II Corinthians 4:17)

President John F. Kennedy had severe back problems and often experienced excruciating pain.  He told friends he could endure any pain so long as he knew it was temporary.

Your pain is temporary, my friend.

In this life, we all know physical ailments. “We who are in this body do groan” (II Corinthians 5:2).  We also know psychological and relationship pains. Financial, environmental, emotional, psychological, you name it. The list is endless. Life on this wonderful miracle-saturated planet brings with it an endless array of sufferings.

But they are temporary.

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“…but let it be the hidden beauty of the heart…” (I Peter 3:4)

My wife said, “How did you get on this kick about beauty pageants?”

I had been in revival in the lovely little town of Eutaw, Alabama, all week and had brought my program on “lessons on self-esteem from drawing 100,000 people” to three schools, a private academy, the local high school, and two combined middle schools. And after telling the kids that the first lesson I learned from sketching people of all ages for nearly a lifetime is that “everyone is beautiful in some way,” I point out that “each one is different, and therefore, comparing one with another is pointless and can be destructive.”

That’s when I will often remark as an aside that “this is why beauty pageants can be so foolish.”

Suppose you have 20 young ladies, all of them lovely and winners in every way. But the judges tell only one that she is the winner and send 19  home as losers.  What have we done? And why have we done it?  And should Christians do this?

I posted a paragraph on Facebook suggesting that such pageants might be a sin against humanity.

The comments poured in.

Most agreed, but the comments of two groups deserve mentioning.

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Has this happened to you?

A clerk was rude and you have not been back to that store.

A desk clerk at a motel ignored you and you took your business elsewhere.

The receptionist at the doctor’s office acted snarly and you are seriously considering finding another specialist.

An usher at a new church acted cold and unfriendly and you will not be returning to that church.

While you are pondering that ill-mannered treatment and your response to it, consider that as a follower of Jesus Christ, you sit on His front desk. You represent Jesus to the public. You are, so to speak, answering His phone and dealing with inquirers seeking Him.

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“…they suppose they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7).

We all suppose we will be heard for one reason or other, otherwise we’d stop praying.

What assumptions are you making? Here are a few erroneous positions we sometimes take.

WE EXPECT TO BE HEARD FOR OUR MANY WORDS.

I’ve actually seen books devoted to teaching us how to pray several hours a day. As if the Lord needs this and we gain some kind of medals by piling up the hours. Our Catholic friends are known to pray the Rosary hundreds of times in order to do something–convince God of our sincerity or earn His  favor, or something.

That said, I confess that often in the mornings when I am trying to get my mind awake and focused on the Lord in order to do some serious praying, I will repeat the Lord’s Prayer several times. This is not in order to build up anything with the Lord, but to break through my foggy brain.

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“I am not ashamed” (II Timothy 1:12).

No one enjoys being embarrassed. We do a hundred things to avoid it–take a daily bath, use deodorant, no longer wear some of the things in our closet, take care of the words we speak, admonish our children, and cut our lawns.

Shame is embarrassment on steroids. If embarrassment means to blush, shame means dying a thousand deaths while continuing to breathe.

To be ashamed is to be humiliated in front of people from whom you wanted acceptance or admiration or appreciation. You are devastated at the way people now see you; you wish to crawl into a hole.

Shame is a big issue with the Apostle Paul. Writing from his prison cell in Rome, in his final letter (or, at least, the last one we have of his epistles), he had this to say on the subject:

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“God is faithful” (I Corinthians 10:13).

1) If you do not like change, you do not want to start following Jesus.

Jesus Christ has great plans for your life, and if you hand “you” over to Him–and continue doing so every day of your life for the rest of your earthly journey–you will find that involves change, change, and more change.  We may call it growth or something spiritual like “sanctification,” but it’s all about change.

He loves you the way you are, but loves you enough not to leave you that way.

Here is how the Apostle Paul put it: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (II Corinthians 3:18).

That is the plan.

You don’t like change, you say?

Then, do not come after Jesus.

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